i am a little church

Charles White, ""Move On Up a Little Higher"

i am a little church

i am a little church (no great cathedral)
far from the splendour and squalor of hurrying cities
--i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
--i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

e.e. cummings

Now here is a poem I hold in my heart. So cup-overflowing with joy, so drenched in gratitude and shining with praise. "My prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving...children" - so true, clumsily striving children - I am definitely one of those. I can hardly call this a poem - it seems to come more and more alive, until it sings - it actually sings in me. I can't even think about how it was written, it's so loud. It says so much that (for me) it drowns out the author. Like one of those rare moments when the writer becomes an open channel for beauty. "Around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection" - beautiful. And most beautiful of all - "i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence" - I've mentioned before how cumming's God is the power of "Yes", and "Now". Well, Yes! and Now! and Amen, Amen, Amen. May this be the truth I stand in always.